README

   1 2003-11-08
   2
   3 MediaWiki
   4 ---------
   5
   6 MediaWiki is the software used for Wikipedia
   7 (http://www.wikipedia.org) and the other Wikimedia
   8 Foundation websites. Compared to other wikis, it has an
   9 excellent range of features and support for high-traffic
  10 websites. However, it is generally harder to install. Be
  11 sure to follow the INSTALL document closely. Installation on
  12 a Microsoft Windows system is not recommended, however it is
  13 possible. Documentation for installation on Windows may be
  14 found at:
  15
  16   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_MediaWiki_on_Windows
  17
  18 The MediaWiki software was written by:
  19
  20 * Lee Daniel Crocker
  21 * Magnus Manske
  22 * Jan Hidders
  23 * Brion Vibber
  24 * Axel Boldt
  25 * Geoffrey T. Dairiki
  26 * Tomasz Wegrzanowski
  27 * Erik Moeller
  28 * Tim Starling
  29 * Gabriel Wicke
  30 * Several others
  31
  32 These developers hold the copyright to this work, and it is
  33 licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License,
  34 version 2 (see http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html). Derivative
  35 works and later versions of the code will also be considered
  36 free software licensed under the same terms.
  37
  38 The newly-founded Wikimedia Foundation currently has no
  39 legal rights to the software, although copyright may be
  40 assigned to it at a later date. Wikimedia has not funded
  41 any of the development work.
  42
  43 Sections of code written exclusively by Lee Crocker or Erik
  44 Moeller are also released into the public domain, which does
  45 not impair the obligations of users under the GPL for use
  46 of the whole code or other sections thereof.
  47
  48 Many thanks to the Wikipedia regulars for testing and
  49 suggestions.
  50
  51 The code is currently maintained at Sourceforge under the
  52 project "wikipedia", module name "phase3". You can view the
  53 code in CVS, report bugs and make feature requests there:
  54
  55   http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net
  56
  57 Documentation and discussion on new features may be found
  58 at:
  59
  60   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_development
  61
  62 If you are setting up your own wiki based on this software,
  63 it is highly recommended that you subscribe to mediawiki-l:
  64
  65   http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
  66
  67 The mailing list is very low volume, and is intended primarily
  68 for announcements of new versions, bug fixes, and security
  69 issues.
  70
  71 PHP
  72
  73 The code is written in PHP. Version 4.3.2 or higher is
  74 recommended. There are known issues with early 4.2.x
  75 releases.
  76
  77 MySQL
  78
  79 MediaWiki requires MySQL 3.23 or later, and PHP-MySQL.
  80 Version 4.0 or later is strongly recommended
  81
  82 Operating system
  83
  84 The code was written on and for Linux, and no attempt
  85 has been made to make it portable to other OSs. The
  86 math support in particular has run-time dependencies on
  87 things like TeTeX and GhostScript that are generally
  88 found in  Linux but not other OSs. However, we have had
  89 reports of successful installation on Windows, albeit
  90 without TeX support.